


Yours and Mine

by Braincoins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, birthday fic, in more than one sense, twinganes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 20:25:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19092493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Braincoins/pseuds/Braincoins
Summary: How do you know who you are when you were made to be someone - something- else?





	Yours and Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kitsune13tamlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsune13tamlin/gifts).



> Happy belated birthday to [headspacedad](https://headspacedad.tumblr.com/)! I hope this is enough Twinganes goodness for you! Sorry it's kind of... rushed junk. I hope it's okay regardless!
> 
> This is basically set in my V:LotD universe, where the clone attacked the team and was knocked out and taken to the Altean Diaspora (run by a ruling Council; Romelle is one of the councilors) for help in trying to "deprogram" him. Eventually they manage it, and Shiro names him Ryou and he stays with the Alteans to try to help them out (kind of a callback to DotU/Beast King GoLion).  
> ===============

            He’d been missing all quintant, Romelle said. “Sometimes he gets like this,” she explained. “I just leave him be. He comes back eventually.”

            “Comes back?” Shiro asked with a frown. He’d flown out to the colony of the Altean Diaspora just to see him, and it was worrying to hear he’d gone missing.

            “Into society, as it were,” she said quickly. “He’s not really _missing_. He’s probably in his house; that’s where he usually is. He just disappears in there, locks the door, doesn’t turn the lights on for a couple of quintants. He just has these times where he needs to be alone, and I don’t press. He comes out when he’s ready and he’s fine.”

            “How often does he do this?” he asked.

            She shrugged. “It used to be a lot; we’ve got it down to about once a phoeb now?”

            He sighed and ran a hand back through his hair. “Which one is his house? I need to talk with him.”

            Romelle’s mouth twisted. “If you insist, though… he really does seem to want to be alone. But it’s this way.” She headed off into the village center; Shiro adjusted the bag on his back and followed.

            This man had been a clone, created with wicked design and evil purpose. He had attacked the team, tried to kill them… but he was still a _person_ , undeniably. A person who looked and sounded just like Shiro, and it had taken them a long time to work through his “programming,” and unravel it. He had been given over to the care of the Altean Diaspora and its council, and Romelle seemed to have taken a special interest in his rehabilitation. More to the point, he’d opted to stay here of his own free will… or so Shiro had thought.

            He’d given him a name: Ryou, the name his – _their_ – mother had wanted for her second son before the miscarriage. He was working hard to think of him as a brother. It was difficult, especially when they never got to spend time together. The universe still needed saving, and Ryou still needed help – apparently more so than he’d even thought. But he was here now, in this brief moment of peace, to start seeing to that.

            _If you’ll see me at all_ , he thought worriedly. This was the first he’d heard about Ryou isolating himself. _The Alteans freed you of your connection to Haggar; you don’t have to do her bidding anymore. Don’t tell me you still feel the compulsion to attack and kill?_

The thought chilled him. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Ryou’s rehabilitation had been good for Shiro himself as well. It showed him that even someone tailor-made to be evil could be redeemed. If Ryou was not a monster, then surely Shiro wasn’t either? Not anymore, anyway. Not ever again. But if Ryou couldn’t help himself…

            _I’m not him. He’s not me. He’s my cl- **brother** , not me. It’s different._

It made him ache inside, for Ryou and for himself.

            Romelle led him to a house tucked away in a side street and knocked on the door. It was non-descript, like most of the simple houses here. “Your brother’s here,” she called through the door.

            There was a long hesitation, and then the sound of locks unlocking.

            “That’s the best you’re going to get,” Romelle told him.

            “Thank you,” he said to her, reaching for the door. “For everything you’ve done for him and us.”

            She smiled. “I’m glad to help anyone who’s suffered at the hands of the Galra. I’ll be at the public house down the street if you need me; they’ve got a special today on roast wrestrel.”

            “Oh, uh… enjoy.”

            Romelle thanked him and walked off. Shiro watched her go before opening the door.

            “Can I come in?”

            “Just you,” Ryou’s voice replied from the dark.

            “Just me,” he agreed, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. “Want me to lock it again?”

            “If you wouldn’t mind.” He sounded detached, distant, not quite robotic.

            Shiro exhaled and turned to lock the door. “Why are you sitting here in the dark?”

            “Sometimes it’s the only way I can see clearly.”

            Shiro stood uncertainly just inside the door. “Can I make a light enough to find somewhere to sit?”

            The answer came in the form of a glowing hand-shaped light that wasn’t Shiro’s. Ryou had activated his own hand. He was sitting in a chair at the lone table. There was another chair opposite it.

            Shiro approached, swung the bag off and set it gently on the table, then sat in the other chair. “Thank you.”

            The light went out.

            “What brings you here?” Ryou asked stiffly.

            “You,” Shiro replied. “My brother.”

            “Your what?”

            “My brother.”

            “I’m not. I wasn’t born of your mother and father. I was made in a lab, from _your_ cells.”

            “My cells come from my mother and father,” Shiro pointed out. “How are you _not_ my brother?”

            “I am a thing, made for a purpose I didn’t want.”

            “Is this what you sit here and think about all day when you do this?”

            “Yes. Mostly.”

            “What’s the rest of it?”

            “… what’s in the bag?” Ryou asked instead.

            “Presents.”

            “I don’t need them.”

            “No one _needs_ them. That’s not the point.” Shiro tried to lighten his tone. “It’s our birthday.”

            The air shifted, and even though there was a long silence, it wasn’t ponderous. It was…curious. “ _Our_ birthday?”

            “Yes. In some ways, you’re my twin and in some ways, you’re my younger brother. So I just decided you’re the younger twin, that’s all.” He shrugged, even if Ryou couldn’t see it in the darkness. “So your birthday is the same as mine.”

            “It’s our birthday?”

            “According to Pidge and Hunk’s calculations, yes. We don’t get many of them,” he added. “Stupid leap year babies. And don’t let anyone tell you that it means we’re only six years old.”

            “I’m not even six years old.”

            Shiro sighed. “Ryou…”

            “Doesn’t it bother you?!” his voice cried out in the dark. “That I look and sound like you but I’m _not_ you and I was created against your will, without your knowledge, as part of some evil plan?!”

            “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t,” he acknowledged. “But you’re also your own person.”

            “Am I?”

            “You’re _Ryou_ Shirogane, and I’m Takashi.”

            “You gave me that name.”

            “Our mother wanted to name you that.”

            “SHE’S NOT MY MOTHER!”

            “YES, SHE IS!” Shiro drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “She’s my mother, so she’s your mother. You’re half her just as much as I am. Literally.”

            The silence was back, but it was less curious, more sullen.

            “And you’re _not_ me. The Black Lion proved that.”

            “So what good am I? _You’re_ the hero, _you’re_ the Black Paladin, _you’re_ …”

            “You’re my brother.”

            “You keep saying that as if repetition will make it true.”

            “Maybe it will. But let me put it another way: do you not want to be my brother? Because you don’t have to be. I know… I kind of foisted it on you, because it was easier for me. It was – _is_ – easier for me to think of you as a twin I never knew I had than to… It’s easier. It’s… better. But I made that choice for you.”

            More dark silence. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know what I want.”

            “Turn on a light – a real light – and at least see what I brought for our birthday?” Shiro asked.

            “Does the arm ever bother you?” Ryou asked instead.

            “Sometimes. I look at it and think about what the Galra intended for me, and I just…”

            “No, I mean… like it itches sometimes.”

            “Oh.” He couldn’t help it: Shiro started laughing.

            “It really itches!” Ryou protested. “Romelle gave me some lotion and that helps a little, but…”

            “I’m sorry, I just… I figured everything was going to be sort of existential. I wasn’t prepared for… Yeah, it itches for me sometimes, too.”

            “And sometimes it’s like the _hand_ itches, and you can’t put lotion on that ‘cause there _is no hand anymore_.”

            “And you find yourself scratching at the metal anyway because even just doing that feels better in some weird way, even though you can’t actually scratch the itch?” Shiro finished.

            “Yeah, exactly!” There was the scrape of a chair and the sound of footsteps. “Light,” came the warning, and the lights turned on.

            The house was spartanly furnished, largely undecorated. Ryou came back to the table, eyeing the bag Shiro had brought. “Romelle will be glad to know I have a birthday. She bugs me about it sometimes.”

            “She likes you,” Shiro said, reaching towards the bag.

            “She likes being a busybody,” Ryou muttered, blush staining his stubbly cheeks.

            “You’re growing your hair out,” Shiro observed.

            “Yeah. I need to shave though. I don’t do a lot of that when I’m just… thinking.”

            “In the midst of your existential quandry?”

            “Can you blame me?”

            “No, not at all. Here.” He pulled out a box: a cake floated inside it. “Hunk made this for us.”

            “I… sort of remember Hunk. The other paladins are… dim.”

            “How so?” he asked, opening up the box and carefully pulling the lid off.

            “My strongest memories are yours up to the point of your capture. The Garrison, Adam, Keith… family. I have my own memories of when I ‘came back’ but they’re almost like shadows, like… like when She,” there was only one She who was said capitalized like that, “activated my programming, it drowned them out. And then when I woke up here, everything gets sort of… mentally solid again.”

            “Well, all you need to know about Hunk right now is that he’s a gastronomic genius and he made this cake especially for us.”

            “Us?” But before Ryou could ask further, Shiro pushed the floating cake over to him. And, sure enough, there was writing on the cake in Japanese characters.

            “Can you read it?”

            “O-tanjoubi omedetou Takashi to Ryou,” he read out loud.

            “And you know what that means?”

            Ryou smiled faintly. “Happy birthday, Takashi and Ryou.” He looked over at Shiro. “His handwriting’s pretty good.”

            Shiro grinned. “He thinks of them as pictures to draw in icing. I had to write the characters down three times before they were legible enough for him to reproduce.”

            Ryou laughed. “We- _You_ never did win any penmanship awards, in English _or_ Japanese.”

            “No wonder Mom wanted me to be a doctor.”

            They both laughed at that. “Hold on, I’ll get something to cut the cake with.” He stood and headed for the small kitchen.

            “You do that. I’m going to unload the rest of the stuff.”

            “You’re dealing with this really well. I mean… I’m a _clone_ and I tried to kill everyone.”

            “You were programmed to do that by an evil witch.”

            “Doesn’t change the clone part.”

            He sighed. “It isn’t always easy. I told you that before. But… you didn’t ask to be created anymore than I asked to be born. The way you came into this universe is different, but you’re still a person, and you still deserve a chance to live your own life.”

            “Even though I’m basically you 2.0?” he asked, coming back with a knife, two plates, and two sporks.

            “Are you though?”

            “I have your memories, your voice…”

            “I can hear some slight differences.”

            “…your face.”

            “Sort of.”

            “Close enough. How big a slice do you want?”

            “Uh uh, you first. You’ve never had birthday cake before.”

            Ryou considered the cake. “I never have, have I? I have memories of having it, but it’s not the same.”

            “And that’s part of why I’m here,” Shiro said quietly. “Because you deserve to have your _own_ memories. For you. And that’s what you’re doing here. I’M not helping the Altean Diaspora pull their lives back together after Lotor’s betrayal. I’M not working day in and day out with Romelle and the Council.

            “You call me a hero like you’re not one, but I just don’t think that’s true.”

            Ryou looked across at him for a long moment, tears and conflicted emotions in his eyes.

            “And you deserve a huge slice of cake,” Shiro finished.

            Ryou barked a laugh and dutifully cut a large slice, making sure to get as much of the “Ryou” on there as possible. He wrangled it onto the plate and set it aside. “You have to get the Takashi part then.”

            “I won’t argue with that.”

            “Thanks for not baking it yourself.”

            “HEY!”

            “I remember home ec.”

            “I wish you didn’t. I wish _I_ didn’t.”

            “You didn’t burn down the school, just kind of charred that one wall.”

            “Keep it up and you’re not getting your presents,” Shiro warned. It was an idle threat, and they both knew it.

            “Here,” and the Takashi piece was passed over to him. “Eat first and then presents?”

            “Eat and open presents at the same time?” he asked instead as he dug into the cake.

            “So impatient,” Ryou tsked. “Everything in its time, they say here.”

            “See? You’re already starting to become your own person.”

            He set his spork down. “You really think so?”

            Shiro nodded. “Yeah. I’m way too… busy…”

            “Impatient.”

            “…to do one thing at a time. But hey, it’s _our_ birthday, so I guess I can try.”

            They ate and ignored the presents for now. Hunk’s cake was excellent, of course, even with the strange ingredients he’d had to make do with. The cake turned out to be frosted with sweetened food goo, but it was still pretty damn good. “Have him send me the recipe,” Ryou said.

            “You sure that’s a good idea?”

            “Hey, I can at least _try_ to be a decent baker.”

            “Just don’t burn down your home.”

            “Ha ha.”

            “Maybe get Romelle to help you with it?”

            “So, presents?” Ryou asked instead. Shiro chuckled at that and pushed the pile of brightly wrapped boxes over towards him.

            “All for you.”

            Ryou paused. “What about you?”

            “I… think Keith is planning something for when I get back. I’m pretending I don’t know about it though.”

            “Oh, well, so long as you’re not left out.” He hesitated. “I didn’t get you anything.”

            “You’re my brother – if you still want to be,” Shiro told him. “That’s… that’s enough.”

            Ryou smiled again and opened a present rather than say anything. It was his own comtab, from Coran, already pre-loaded with an Altean language learning program and several other “necessities,” (in the advisor’s eyes).

            He also got a personal communicator (from Allura) so he could contact the Castle of Lions directly, and a new set of clothes, each piece from a different paladin. Shiro had given the shirt: predominantly white with some black on it, in contrast to the black-on-black that they both normally wore.

            “This is… different.”

            “Well, the Alteans like a lot of white. I thought you’d want to fit in more here, if you’re planning on staying.”

            “I… I think I am.” He looked out one of the windows. “It’s simple here. It’s easy to feel needed, and no one judges me for anything except my ears.”

            Shiro snorted. “Let me guess: they’re hideous?”

            “Well, Romelle says they’re just ‘different’ and ‘take getting used to,’ but yeah, I’m pretty sure she means ‘ugh how can you stand to look at them?!’”

            They both laughed again. “Seriously though, I’m glad you like it here. I… again, it’s a decision we made for you, and I just…”

            “I’m not sure where else I’d go,” Ryou said, mirth gone. “And I do like it here. I like being able to _make_ things with my hands. I like being able to help people. And, no offense, but if I was somewhere else in the universe, I can’t shake the feeling that I’d be compared to… well, you.”

            “No, I get it. You can be your own person here.”

            “I don’t have to live in your shadow. I don’t have to try to be the Black Paladin – which I’m not.”

            Shiro frowned. “I never wanted…”

            “It was inevitable,” he replied. “When we look and sound so much alike. But everyone here has gotten to know _me_. They don’t see…” He fell quiet for the first time since the lights came on.

            “What?”

            “…a broken you.”

            Shiro sighed and reached his left hand across. “Ryou, I _am_ broken. I think, at this point, we all are. War… is like that. I’ve been broken for a while now, and I think I might be mending? Maybe? But I can’t do it alone. I need help. I need the other paladins and Coran and Allura and the Black Lion and… and you.”

            “Me?” Ryou blinked at him. “Why would you need me? I shouldn’t even exist.”

            “But you _do_ exist. And you’re… all the family I have left, aside from the team. _WE_ are family, Ryou.”

            “We’re blood, but…”

            “We can be family. If we work at it.”

            “And that’s what this is?”

            “Yeah,” Shiro agreed. “We can help each other, support each other. That’s what family does.”

            Ryou stood up suddenly, jerking his hands away from Shiro’s. “How can you trust me after what I did?”

            “Because that wasn’t you. That was _Her_. Look at all the _good_ you’re doing here! That’s you, Ryou. You’re a good person, and that’s why she _had_ to program you to do evil, because you wouldn’t have otherwise.”

            Ryou turned away sharply, and Shiro just knew. He rose from the table, walked around, and gathered this man who shared so much of his DNA into his arms. Because he knew Ryou was trying to hide his tears. It was the same thing he’d do in this situation.

            He held his created twin and, eventually, Ryou held him back.

            “I hate crying,” he muttered after a moment. “I feel so weak.”

            “I know. But it’s not.”

            “Doesn’t change how I feel. And it’s probably how you feel, too.”

            “Yeah,” he admitted. “Knowing it’s not weak and feeling like it’s not weak are two different things. But I won’t tell anyone.”

            “I both do and don’t want to be you.”

            “Be yourself. That’s good enough.”

            “But how? Who even am I?”

            “Well, you’ll have all the rest of your life to figure that out.”

           

 

            Shiro stopped in at the pub, found Romelle and suggested she stop in at Ryou’s house. “Make him show off his new clothes for you,” he suggested. “Flatter him enough, and you might get a slice of cake.” The promise of sweets was enough to send her running in that direction.

            He headed back up to the Castle, where everyone was strangely absent. Shiro pretended to be more surprised than he was when they sprang out and yelled, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” at him (even if Keith felt it necessary to add the “6th” in there, like the brat he was).

            And there were presents, and more cake until Shiro felt like he’d never eat again. And just before he laid down to try to sleep, there was a chirp from the personal communicator, and a text-only message:

            “Happy Birthday, Niisan.”

            Shiro smiled, texted back, “Happy Birthday to you, too, Otouto.”


End file.
